I tired using my Acratech Ball Head but it really is quicker to capture by hand.. My Ball Head is great since I can swing it to portrait and landscape very quickly.. I can keep the tightness on stiff so its not so floppy.. It has its use for sure..

Hi Destiny no not yet, I asked about it at the shop I go to the other day they said it had not arrived yet ,so still waiting ,Good about the sigma feels good when you pay things off doesn't it , The worst thing wrong with my D800 is that I don't have 2 of them , yes the D4s looks very good I think I could live with one ha ha , A gimbal mount is what you need for birds etc early cold winters morning probably best time for dragon flies I think , I tried focus stacking a wild orchid and it nearly worked just a little less wind and it would have been ok, I will try again this year, that was using a stack shot focus rail , hey is that VR drive as good in real life as it looks on there web site cheers Rolly1 PS ( FIXED MY COMPUTER AT LAST NO MORE BLUE SCREENS OF DEAF YEA ))

Hi.. I have been really lucking with my gear but I found it was so important to research and read heaps of reviews as well as take note from forum members before I buy anything.. Not a day goes by where we have regretted buying my VR Drive. Its expensive and to be honest we bought it to be competitive and to be able to shoot really accurate panos very quickly, in and out.. The problem in Australia they are mostly ignorant that VR Tours even exist.. They most see no value in them at all. Google helped to stuff it up with their poor quality.. and yucky VRs from the early days using one shot lenses and other yucky panos did not do high quality panos any favours.. If you really want to buy a nice high quality motorised head, I would most certainly suggest the VR Drive with the HDR software.. Their support is amazing. But you might want to consider a cheaper option. The MK Panoramic System is very nice too.. The guys that runs it is Marc, he is very very helpful and would provide great support too..

He has a nice new web site now too.. I gave him a hard time about some of the yucky images he had with yuck waves, which has meaning but lost on me.. So glad his new web site now looks so cools.. Very professional and easy to navigate..

Destiny wrote:I tired using my Acratech Ball Head but it really is quicker to capture by hand.. My Ball Head is great since I can swing it to portrait and landscape very quickly.. I can keep the tightness on stiff so its not so floppy.. It has its use for sure..

These gimbals are fine - but not optimal when you shoot moving animals using very long lenses.

Following birds and other fast moving objects with long lenses it´s preferable to use a a good fluid-head for movie-/videocameras.Rather useless is a head wich you need to lock for shooting: you most unlikely have the time to lock it before the bird is gone.

A fluid head you can balance in a way that it 1) holds it´s position when you take your hands off without locking it and (even more important) it2) provides an extremely smooth pan and tilt - this way you can shoot while you follow and shoot the bird even using a very long lens (given you can use short exp. times, of course).

Such heads often are used by animal-photographers and - of course - filmers just because of these advantages.

No I am not going to buy another robotic head , I am very happy with my panogear its small ,light fits well in a back pack ,it would be nice if it was a little faster but you can't have every thing ,Its just that the vr drive was so impressive to watch on their web site ,Will get one if I win Xlotto the MK one looks impressive too ,prices are a bit hard to see should change the font I think ,Klausesser I see your browsing this forum I would like to thank you for putting me in touch with Josef and getting my T & C fixed cheers rolly1

I bought a 500 mm zeiss teletessar for a Hasselblad and with an adaptor for Nikon works well on my D800. No vignetting at all because I only use the very center part of the lens. I found it on ebay for 380 euros. The weight is no problem for the epic pro.

oh I sooooo want a Hasselbald camera, partially the H5D-200MS, but $$$$$ .... I was so happy a few weeks a go to test a Hasselbald out at my girl friends boss studio.. At first I was so confused at the absolute beautiful quality.. "How could this be" The image totally blew me away.. When I first saw the Nikkor 400 f/2.8E FL ED VR Lens, I thought.. oh hum.. very nice but even if I were rich, I still would not buy one.. I love my Sigma 50-500mm... and now I have a Black Rapid Strap I do not worry about dropping it so much since its sooo heavy.. I think rich or poor its a great lens... To be honest, if I was in the market to spend that kind of money, I would probably go for the Cannon range... I would never spend that kind of money on a Nikkor lens but I sure would spend heaps on a Hasselbald... if I was rich...

Your 500 mm zeiss teletessar seems to be very interesting.. Cheap too for such a nice lens... Do you have any example images..

spherorama wrote:I bought a 500 mm zeiss teletessar for a Hasselblad and with an adaptor for Nikon works well on my D800. No vignetting at all because I only use the very center part of the lens. I found it on ebay for 380 euros. The weight is no problem for the epic pro.

Great and very sharp lens! I used it on my (Film)Hasselblads for a long time shooting fashion.I adapted some Hasselblad lenses to my D800 - they work impressingly well on it.

I´m going to buy a Kipon tilt-shift adapter for Hasselblad lenses on the D800. So i can use my 50mm Distagon for tabletop product shots. The Distagon 50mm for Hasselblad has a much bigger image-circle than the T/S lenses for 35mm . . . and so shift is much less limited circle-wise. So the lens always works in it´s "sweat spot" part.

The problem with the usual T/S lenses is that with shifting you quickly reach the outer regions of their image-circles - which are not so much bigger than the circle for 35mm.

good thing that I never dumped my Hasselblad gear. I used the 150mm Hasselblad lens also with success on the D800. I still have my Sinar optical bank equipment and have a handmade adaptor for my digital Nikons. This beats all tilt/shift lenses in the studio.

Hi all ,does my 50 mm f2 Nikkor lens of my Nikormat ftn rate in this Hi end lens conversation Ha Ha, Has every body upgraded there D800 firmware to 1.1 not much change but may as well ,Still have not seen the 150 to 600 Tamron yet and still mixed reports cheers rolly1

hi Destiny its not hard, you find it on Nikon web site , down load it to a folder on your computer , Run it in the folder , you should come up with a D800_ 0110.bin file you save that to your cf card not in a folder via a card reader , Stick the cf card in camera and , go to set up menu, firmware version it should have update added hit yes don't turn power of until finished cheers rolly1 p.s. (they have instruction on web site) but that's it in a nut shell or take it to your local shop

Guess you wouldn´t have so much fun with it - it´s a multishot back. That means you can´t use the 200MPx with moving objects. Multishot means that it makes 4 exposures instead of one. With each exposure the chip moves some pixel - and this leads to 200MPx . . . in fact the sensor has 50MPx.

Destiny wrote:but $$$$$ .... I was so happy a few weeks a go to test a Hasselbald out at my girl friends boss studio.. At first I was so confused at the absolute beautiful quality.. "How could this be" The image totally blew me away..

Right - but that´s only important when you: 1) need it for printing @300dpi on advertising double-pages in high class magazines (that´s what i have my Hasselblad H4/40 for)2) are an artist and shoot for real big prints in galleries and exhibitions. Andreas Gursky used a H4 for many pictures.

I used my H4/40 ONCE for panorama work - believe me: a D800 is a more appropriate choice for that . .

rolly1 wrote:Hi all ,does my 50 mm f2 Nikkor lens of my Nikormat ftn rate in this Hi end lens conversation Ha Ha, Has every body upgraded there D800 firmware to 1.1 not much change but may as well ,Still have not seen the 150 to 600 Tamron yet and still mixed reports cheers rolly1

Don´t understimate the f2/50mm Nikkor! It´s a very good lens also on a D800!! Look for an Ai conversion kit for about 18.- to 30.- US$ and you have full D800 compatibility (w.o. AF of course).Works stopped down also without the conversion - but makes more fun with it.

rolly1 wrote:hi Destiny its not hard, you find it on Nikon web site , down load it to a folder on your computer , Run it in the folder , you should come up with a D800_ 0110.bin file you save that to your cf card not in a folder via a card reader , Stick the cf card in camera and , go to set up menu, firmware version it should have update added hit yes don't turn power of until finished cheers rolly1 p.s. (they have instruction on web site) but that's it in a nut shell or take it to your local shop

well the update affects only some settings, that are, in my opinion quite useless. The excellent quality of the images remains the same. They didn't touch noise reduction. So I decided no update at the moment. Never touch a running system.

good thing that I never dumped my Hasselblad gear. I used the 150mm Hasselblad lens also with success on the D800. I still have my Sinar optical bank equipment and have a handmade adaptor for my digital Nikons. This beats all tilt/shift lenses in the studio.

All the best

Andy

Hi Andy!

Yep. But i skipped using 5D2 or D800 as a back on my Sinars or Linhofs - due to the depth of the mirror-assembly the possible movement of large format lenses is very limited. So even using a SuperAngulon XL 47mm (excellent lens on 4x5" as you know) isn´t preferable over a 50mm Distagon from the MF-Hasselblad in terms of shift/tilt using a Kipon adapter on D800 or 5D2.

Not a very important upgrade but the camera has been around for a reasonably long time now , this may be the last firmware upgrade before a new model ( D4 D4s ) ( D800 D800s ? ) Andy I do agree with you but may as well have the thing up to date at the end cheers rolly1

Yes rolly1... I found it and downloaded it.. Not done the deed yet... I will update later..

I am confused.. When I purchased my D800 I registered it.. But my email cannot be found when I tried to find my account.. Perhaps I did not confirm.. Anyway.. I have done that now and confirmed.. Hopefully I will receive an email when new updates come.. I know I registered it since I tried to register my 14-24 at the same time.. But they said I did not have to register a lens..

If it wasn't for the the yuck weather I would go out and play with my Sigma 50-500mm.. I used it at the school ANZEC memorial day.. I got some nice photos.. I had more people looking at me than at the presenter.. I had a guy stand next to me and he had a zoom lens too. Not sure which one.. He then extended it with a grin which made his bigger than mine.. emmm.. So I then extended mine.. hahhahah He laughed.... I just carried on taking photos.. So glad I have a Black Rapid Strap.. Its so heavy..

I was reading about the D4s.. very very nice.. I think the Hasselbald is excellent but.. not for me.. I do not have studio or the experience to use one.. Far too much $$$.. I could by a new car and a D4s with Lens and still have change... As Klaus says, I would have more use with the D800.. No regrets about buying it, beautiful camera.. Even though I will be paying my old gran back for years....and years.. and..